|
I wanted to make a thread to discuss being raised by fundamentalists, evangelicals, religious chuds, w/e you want to call them. I have a feeling a lot of us can find a lot of commonality in our upbringing, even outside of being afraid they're going to hell for jacking off. My family was not remarkable in any way. We didn't go to a snake-handling church, or one that monitored who we spent our time with, or one where the pastor got up and yelled crazy poo poo at us (he mostly calmly analyzed scripture with the help of a big whiteboard) but looking back just your garden-variety conservative Christian church was pretty toxic and mind-warping. We went to a strict Calvinist Presbyterian church (PCA as opposed to the much larger mainstream PCUSA, the "liberal" wing of Prebyterianism). In particular I think there was a strong feedback loop between the logical consequences of the doctrine of predestination (that God has condemned most of humanity to hell and there was nothing any of them could have done about it) and unempathetic, patriarchal conservatism. We were taught that we, believing in the infallibility of scripture, were a "remnant" of God's chosen people, attacked on all sides by the increasingly liberalized world. My pastor was a former weightlifting equipment infomercial model/host who, like most of the elders of my church and my dad, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I never heard any of them say anything explicitly racist, but uh, there were no black members of our church and there was a huge painting of Stonewall Jackson in the narthex (lobby, essentially). I did not really connect these things until I was an adult. My dad did not seem particularly religious most days except Sunday, but would occasionally have something like a fit of religiosity, often for no apparent reason. For example, one time in high school I brought home my work schedule. Since restaurants plan everything around the weekend, the schedule started on Monday and ended with Saturday and Sunday. For whatever reason, this enraged my dad. "The week begins on Sunday! Sunday is the first day of the week!" He would not stop shouting about this and kept demanding my boss' phone number so he could call him and set them straight. He finally relented after my mom calmed him down. Just bizarre, nonsensical poo poo like that would happen on a fairly regular basis. Anyway, just wanted to throw some things out there to see if anyone wanted to talk about mine or their own experiences.
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 21:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 21:42 |
|
|
Big whoop. I was raised by liberals.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 21:22
|
|
|
sorry you had to endure that op. I can't imagine what it would be like to live with a white person who was somewhat more racist than they admitted to being, and who sometimes got mad for unclear reasons. and on top of that you went to church? gently caress
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 21:45
|
|
|
lol I wasn't posting it to say I had a crazy childhood or anything. i just thought it might be fun to talk about that sort of thing with leftists raised in a similar environment.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 21:48
|
|
|
why do christians think the week begins on sunday, anyway? isn't the whole idea that sunday is the seventh day, the day of rest?
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 22:45
|
|
|
No, that's the Sabbath, which is Saturday. Why so many Christians harp on following fhe ten commandments but then treat Sunday as the Sabbath instead is a mystery to me but I think it was done in Roman times.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 22:49
|
|
|
Flavius Aetass posted:No, that's the Sabbath, which is Saturday. Why so many Christians harp on following fhe ten commandments but then treat Sunday as the Sabbath instead is a mystery to me but I think it was done in Roman times. Oh, huh. So why was Sunday the only day people got off until the 1800s ish when the modern weekend began. Sorry, I should probably just google this, but it's weird to see such a disconnect between Christian fundamentalism and capitalist ideas of constructing Western lives when the two were pretty much hand in hand for hundreds of years.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 22:54
|
|
|
Most Christians see Saturday as the "Jewish" Sabbath. Many recognize that Saturday is still technically the Sabbath but their day of rest is Sunday, called the Lord's Day. Like dietary restrictions, it's one of the Jewish conventions that was lost or changed in Christianity's move to the wider world. That being said the lack of conflict is very strange to see from so many churches that claim Biblical supremacy over any other factors. You'd think the Sabbath, the day of rest, and Saturday would all remain the same thing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 22:56
|
|
|
Okay, so Christians hosed it up and capitalism went with it. Got it, thank you for walking me through it!
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 22:58
|
|
|
Professor, I've something fascinating to share
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 22:59
|
|
|
Pre-capitalism in Europe it was still seen as an important cultural distinction between Jew and Gentile.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 23:00
|
|
|
At an hour every Sunday wouldn't you run out of things to talk about?
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 23:07
|
|
|
lots of people talk about stuff online for an hour every day, and they don't even have a thick book full of prompts 
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 23:10
|
|
|
Flavius Aetass posted:Most Christians see Saturday as the "Jewish" Sabbath. Many recognize that Saturday is still technically the Sabbath but their day of rest is Sunday, called the Lord's Day. Like dietary restrictions, it's one of the Jewish conventions that was lost or changed in Christianity's move to the wider world. i always thought going to church was considered 'work' in the biblical sense so you do that on sunday and rest on saturday.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 23:12
|
|
|
Taintrunner posted:Big whoop. I was raised by liberals. its pretty immature to blame your parents for where you ended up op
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 23:36
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:its pretty immature to blame your parents for where you ended up op
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 23:38
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:its pretty immature to blame your parents for where you ended up op 
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 23:41
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:its pretty immature to blame your parents for where you ended up op
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2021 23:43
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:its pretty immature to blame your parents for where you ended up op
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 02:17
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:its pretty immature to blame your parents for where you ended up op roasted
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 02:19
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:its pretty immature to blame your parents for where you ended up op
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 02:25
|
|
|
Larry Parrish posted:its pretty immature to blame your parents for where you ended up op gotdamn
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 02:26
|
|
|
oh thank goodness I thought prester jane was back. sorry about your upbringing OP, my mom beat me because she thought I was possessed by the devil and that was before she was a trad cath/Q-adjacent rube
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 04:00
|
|
|
Protagorean posted:oh thank goodness I thought prester jane was back. sorry about your upbringing OP, my mom beat me because she thought I was possessed by the devil and that was before she was a trad cath/Q-adjacent rube wow sorry to hear that not the same thing but i remember borrowing a book on mythological monsters from the school library, having a nightmare, and blaming the book, to which my mom responded by throwing it into the street and screaming "I REBUKE YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS!" she meant well at least 
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 04:03
|
|
|
lol I remember when my sister got a 5 foot skeleton Halloween decoration from a friend and mom doused it in holy water and threw it out. the shed was always overflowing with holiday bullshit including lots of Halloween stuff but a memento mori? one step away from devil worship
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 04:36
|
|
|
Recently my therapist pointed out that being raised evangelical probably drills in this idea that the world is inherently threatening and irredeemable and people are corrupt, hostile, and exploitative by default and a lot of my pessimism started to come into focus. So yeah op I feel that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 04:55
|
|
|
Protagorean posted:lol I remember when my sister got a 5 foot skeleton Halloween decoration from a friend and mom doused it in holy water and threw it out. the shed was always overflowing with holiday bullshit including lots of Halloween stuff but a memento mori? one step away from devil worship pretty stupid considering memento mori are really common iconography throughout christian art
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 04:56
|
|
|
American evangelicals don't really share a lot of culture with Catholics and European Protestants who would use that kind of imagery. Lots of evangelicals would take that as evidence that whatever sect it came from was Satanic.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 04:59
|
|
|
My dad was a Randian atheist from New York, and my mother was a fundamentalist Christian from the South; in addition to the trauma of growing up with right-wing ideology in general, I also had the privilege of witnessing the constant infighting within the ideology itself among my parents as I grew up. Everything racist short of calling black people the N-word was casual, and climate change denial was constant. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News were played daily in the car and household. I even went to a private middle school. I instinctively knew that organized religion, climate change denial, capitalism, and racist stereotypes were wrong from the start (thanks to growing up in liberal California); however, any ideological remnant of the right-wing culture I grew up in was not completely eliminated until I discovered the Gospel of Marx after I was 18. I envy people who never had to deal with this bullshit.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 05:14
|
|
|
i am lucky as my mom was raised by fundamentalists and that's why i was raised by a new age-y communist. unfortunately living these principles tended to mean not having much money and given the way the new age thing went not selling out was the right call even from a childrearing perspective imo. but yeah. i think the assumption that having a lot of kids will mean having more adult members is a funny one from the ideology which nearly every white person in the cities is there to get away from.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 05:32
|
|
|
i was raised among fundamentalists and it was bullcrap lol gas
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 05:35
|
|
|
Marx Headroom posted:the world is inherently threatening and irredeemable and people are corrupt, hostile, and exploitative by default yeah
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 09:09
|
|
|
I grew up in a slightly different type of fundamentalist household. We didn't go for the whole Rapture death cult, and had at least a pretension of education and a whole mass of theological sophistry. Plus, we were reformed, so evangelism wasn't a priority. (Not like those compromisers in the PCA, though.) It was never stated outright, but there was definitely the impression that we were the Few Good People in the Big Nasty Heathen World, and I grew up largely in a bubble of "proper" Christian thought and media commentary. Like, Harry Potter was fine (with many caveats about Proper Behavior), because it was obviously fantastical, but Bridge to Terabithia nearly got banned for "bad theology." And I grew up surrounded by college-educated people who would swear that the Story of Humanity literally involved a talking snake. Lots of weird contrasts, double-standards, and cognitive non-comprehension. Hopefully there's some actual discussion in this thread; considering how much fundamentalist Christian thoughtforms permeate even nominally secular culture. The guilt complexes, the cognitive dissonance, embrace of nuclear war as a good thing, the attitudes towards Sin, the dichotomy of Humanity is Bad but Authority is Good... Or we can snark at liberalism for the 2997th time...
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 09:42
|
|
|
y'all dutch west-MI as hell ain't y'all
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:12
|
|
|
i went to a baptist school as a lil kid then public thereafter but went to church in the modern rock band cool pastor vein. i got to wear jeans and learn powerpoint up in the booth and talk with girls. it was a lovely environment overall but my friends that were mormon, church of christ or PCA had way way worse childhoods and worse parents than me. i consider myself lucky because my parents accepted modern technology and my life outcome more-or-less reflects that
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:15
|
|
|
Arivia posted:why do christians think the week begins on sunday, anyway? isn't the whole idea that sunday is the seventh day, the day of rest? saturday's for cracking tallboys, it says so in the gospel of john
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 10:51
|
|
|
Flavius Aetass posted:No, that's the Sabbath, which is Saturday. Why so many Christians harp on following fhe ten commandments but then treat Sunday as the Sabbath instead is a mystery to me but I think it was done in Roman times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Sabbath Sunday is the day of Jesus' resurrection, 3 "days" (actually 39 hours) after his death. Most Christian denominations consider Sunday the Lord's Day, since Jesus replaced the Old Testament order, they observe the first day of the week. And refer to it as the Sabbath, because since when do Christians care about Jewish practices. Now exactly what goes into "observing the Sabbath" (i.e. what fun can you get away with, what is considered "work") is subject to more rules-lawyering than the other 9 commandments combined. i say swears online posted:y'all dutch west-MI as hell ain't y'all Not Dutch myself, but I know a few 'van's.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 12:56
|
|
|
Cobalt-60 posted:I grew up in a slightly different type of fundamentalist household. We didn't go for the whole Rapture death cult, and had at least a pretension of education and a whole mass of theological sophistry. Plus, we were reformed, so evangelism wasn't a priority. (Not like those compromisers in the PCA, though.) It was never stated outright, but there was definitely the impression that we were the Few Good People in the Big Nasty Heathen World, and I grew up largely in a bubble of "proper" Christian thought and media commentary. Like, Harry Potter was fine (with many caveats about Proper Behavior), because it was obviously fantastical, but Bridge to Terabithia nearly got banned for "bad theology." And I grew up surrounded by college-educated people who would swear that the Story of Humanity literally involved a talking snake. Lots of weird contrasts, double-standards, and cognitive non-comprehension. The sophistry was very real in my church as well. We were very doctrine-heavy. None of the sermons were like "God is kinda like when you're at the golf course and..." Everything had a Biblical basis (Sola Scriptura), but it was never really acknowledged just how much the NIV's translation was based on conforming the words to the already established doctrine. Things like Harry Potter were occasionally discussed in the context of "I know some of you parents might be worried about this but although I can't say I approve it doesn't seem necessarily dangerous spiritually." There was a lot of official recognition of deeply fundamentalist belief that was softened by a kind of subtle sidestep. Like, yes we believe in a literal Satan and literal demons and that possession is real, BUT it's surely not very common and let's not be like those weird churches and place an undue emphasis on it. The only real non-Biblical authorities that were recognized were like John Calvin and a few modern theologians like RC Sproul and Francis Schaeffer, who is a king at making assertions sound academic.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 14:11
|
|
|
I think the biggest difference between PCA and Reformed Presbyterian was that our doctrine was heavily influenced by people who were conservatives first and theologians second, although they would never admit that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 14:18
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 21:42 |
|
|
My problem with most popular religions is that, within their internal logic, somehow the 'wrong' sects have taken over in almost every case. Islam? The Quranists and particularly Mu'tazilites are obviously correct, all that other stuff was invented later. Judaism? The Samaritans (and to a lesser extent the Karaites) are obviously correct. Christianity? The trinity has no scriptural basis. Arian theology made more sense than Catholic theology, but even they were making up a lot of poo poo. Your best bet is one of the tiny unitarian sects that still exist. Anyway, thanks for coming to my TEDx talk.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2021 15:00
|
|
